Bob Brandt
Bob Brandt, born and raised in and around Cleveland, Ohio and has been involved with professional drag racing all of his adult life, starting in the amateur ranks while he was still in high school in a 1939 Plymouth H/Gas car. From there he teamed with school buddies Bo Lyons and Dale Stocker in a high school drag racing team in Windham, Ohio later on competing with fellow tool and die maker Royal Langford with a BB/GS Anglia. When Stocker went into the Army, he “willed” his potent 1957 Chevy E/S national record holder, at the time, to Bob to compete in during the duration of his service. With which Bob was very successful. While he was a teenager in Cleveland Bob was also hanging around the race shops of David Meal, builder of Joe Hrudka’s Willie’s Pie Wagon, Sikora Brothers and Sam Gillner. The more time he spent at the shops the more experience he was gaining by working on many of the various race cars they were either building or repairing. Bob’s apprenticeship as a tool and die maker helped him a lot as he became more and more involved in building and tuning a wide variety of race cars. Bob also spent a lot of time at Dick Malone and Chuck Finders shop. Later working with Malone in the tool and die industry. Malone, later founded S&S Superchargers.
In 1960 Bob’s family moved Southern California and he was soon dividing his time between working with his dad in the heating and air-conditioning business by day and most of his spare time at Roland Leong’s race shop at Keith Black’s. It was at Roland’s that Bob met Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and shortly after their introduction, Snake asked Bob if he would like to help him with his AA/Fuel dragster at an upcoming PDA meet. Things went well for them at the event so Snake invited Bob to drive his rig and crew for him at the upcoming Englishtown, New Jersey Summernationals. After that event things just, sort of evolved and before long he was working for Don on a full-time basis, going between the dragster which at the time was the car they raced at the national events and the funny car that was mainly for match racing. The pair soon realized they work very well together and their commitment to making the team a complete success was so strong the Don and his wife Lynn let Bob move in with them while he was locating a place in the San Fernando Valley area to live. After a few successful seasons competing this way, the dragster was retired and the funny car became the prime race car with which the team amassed their impressive win streak Bob serving as crew chief on both
As the saying goes, “the rest is history”. Bob was Snake’s crew chief for 17 years during which time they were able to put together for World Championships along with numerous speed and ET records including the first recorded 250 MPH run by funny car. They also racked up 34 national event wins and even more match race victories. After retiring from his position with the Snake, Bob also served as crew chief for Gary Ormsby’s top fuel dragster during the 1986 and 1987 seasons, followed by Australian Rachelle Splatt’s and Daniel Deporter’s AA/TF car. Bob was crew chief for Cruz Pedregon driving Larry Minor’s McDonald’s sponsored AA/Funny Car winning three national events. When Joe Gibbs purchased the McDonald’s operation from Minor, Bob stayed on as crew chief and overall manager of the operation tuning Cruz to another five national event wins. In 1998 Don Schumacher contracted Bob to build the Excited Top Fuel Dragster Team, and reentered the drag race competition arena of which Bob was the crew chief, and then in 1999 the team won its first NHRA AA/Fuel dragster championship. With Dan Olson as crew chief and Bob as team manager.
Along the way, Bob is able to count among his accomplishments, seven consecutive Car Craft Magazine All-Star Team Crew Chief of the Year Awards, another eight-time finalist showing for the same award, was named recipient of the 1976 S-K Tools Hall of Fame Award, four fuel funny car world championships, and an impressive win total of 48 national event championships.
Bob feels his success in fuel racing was inspired by Keith black, Ed pink, and Don Prudhomme.